My recently acquired 1983 280zx will start right up and idle fine, but after about 5 minutes it will die and not restart for several minutes. I bought the car locally and drove it home, about 50 miles, without a problem. The seller strongly suggested that I replace the fuel filter, which I did. I also put some gas additive in the tank with a fresh fill up of premium unleaded. That is when my problem began. I installed another fuel filter and new rubber gas lines under the hood (the old ones looked like oem and very old) with no change. Is this a fuel feed problem or an ignition problem?

 

check the tank for rust and other debris..

 

i had a similar problem with my 82 turbo. went through several things to fix it but the problem didn't start to go away until after i disconnected the EGR valve and replaced the ignition coil. Disconnecting the EGR stopped it from dying at random on the freeway when i would left off the throttle, but it still would die after a certain length of time. After i got rid of the Old Ignition coil and put in a new Stock replacement it didn't do it again. Problem completely solved.

 

^^^ Indeed.... several people on here have had this "dying" problem. I believe most narrowed it down to the ignitor on the distrib (for the n/a) or on the side of the coil bracket (for the turbo).